As youth unemployment hits 45.8%, is legal education doing enough to prepare graduates for real jobs?
Advocacy and dispute resolution remain central to the profession, but the work of today’s legal practitioners increasingly extends far beyond traditional legal practice.
For many people, a career in law still conjures up images of courtrooms, working on lengthy case files, litigation between opposing parties and steely glances at opposing counsel across the boardroom table, says Fiona Kaplan, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Emeris.
Advocacy and dispute resolution remain central to the profession, but the work of today’s legal practitioners increasingly extends far beyond traditional legal practice, she says.
Across South Africa’s economy, organisations are navigating a growing web of regulation, governance requirements and emerging legal questions tied to technology, finance and public policy. As a result, legal practitioners are increasingly called upon to advise businesses and help leaders make informed strategic decisions.
This shift has also prompted debate about how legal education prepares graduates for the realities of modern practice. A national review of the LLB qualification by the Council on Higher Education highlighted concerns that some programmes were too heavily focused on theoretical knowledge and recommended stronger emphasis on practical capability, ethical training and broader professional competencies.
Against this backdrop, private higher education providers have increasingly positioned themselves as alternative pathways into the profession. Emeris, for example, graduates more law students each year than any other higher education institution in South Africa, including public universities, with around 80% of its graduates’ entering employment within their first year after completing their studies.
Professor Kaplan, says this evolution reflects the changing expectations placed on legal professionals.
“Where legal practitioners were once primarily focused on interpreting legislation or litigation, they are now progressively asked to assist organisations in making decisions that sit at the intersection of law, business and society,” Kaplan explains. “They are increasingly becoming strategic advisors who help organisations navigate complex matters.”
What does modern legal practice look like?
While dispute resolution and courtroom advocacy remain an important part of the profession, much of today’s legal work takes place in advisory roles. Legal practitioners may assist companies with regulatory compliance and corporate governance, labour frameworks or, for instance, guidance with new legal questions arising from digital platforms, AI, data protection and evolving financial regulation.
“In fact, many legal practitioners work closely with executives or corporations, engineers, financial professionals and policy specialists responsible for developing and interpreting regulatory frameworks, to interpret how legal frameworks apply to real-world operations,” Kaplan adds.
“This reality means that legal practitioners are more and more expected to understand the industries they advise and not just the legal rules that apply to them.”
Preparing graduates for a changing profession
As the profession continues to evolve in this way, legal education is also expected to follow suit, preparing students for a wider range of career pathways while grounding them in the constitutional principles that underpin South Africa’s legal system.
“The role of legal experts is shifting, and so too are the careers they are able to pursue with qualifications such as a Bachelor of Arts in Law or a Bachelor of Commerce in Law and the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree,” says Kaplan. “These programmes, particularly in the manner they are designed at Emeris, combine legal studies with broader disciplines such as business, psychology and communication, to help students understand the contexts in which law operates and better prepare them for a broader range of specialisations.”
Practical exposure to the profession is also becoming a key part of legal training. Kaplan says that Emeris students have access to simulated courtroom environments designed to mirror real legal proceedings, where they can practise courtroom etiquette, legal argumentation and trial preparation through both moot and mock court sessions.
“These simulations form part of a broader effort to equip students with the practical thinking and problem-solving skills expected in professional legal environments,” she says.
Students also have the opportunity to participate in one of five Emeris community law clinics that provide free legal assistance to members of the public who may otherwise struggle to access legal services.
In South Africa, where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line and eligibility for state-supported legal aid is limited by strict income thresholds, initiatives like these can help broaden access to justice and support for vulnerable communities.
She adds that, as Emeris students engage in community-focused learning that exposes them to the social role of law, they also come to learn the importance of access to justice and the protection of rights in South Africa’s constitutional democracy.
The legal profession is still fundamentally about protecting rights and advancing for justice, but the way that work is done is evolving. Future practitioners need to be as comfortable in communities and policy spaces as they are in formal legal settings, and that is a key focus in their legal studies,” she says.
Ultimately, a legal qualification opens more than a single career path and involves adopting a way of thinking that can be applied across a range of sectors and settings.
While the core purpose of the profession remains the protection of rights and the pursuit of justice, the environments in which legal practitioners operate are expanding into business, policy, technology and public interest contexts.
This requires graduates who can move beyond technical interpretation of the law and apply it in practical, problem-solving ways that respond to real-world complexity, whether in formal legal practice or in broader roles that support fairness, accountability and informed decision-making.
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